While we’re guessing, I know how you feel about assumptions and all that, but putting you on the spot, if you absolutely HAD to guess, when do you think FW3A sales will begin? Do you think/hope May sounds reasonable?

I would say….
….. (and this is the first thing that popped in my head) between 1 April & 15 April.

And now for something completely different….
There are 2 materials that are not the most practical out there but one is practical enough to have a niche and the other – I don’t know but maybe.

1. Beryllium copper. High conductivity CuBe has good thermal properties and is much tougher than pure copper. Machining requires seriously good ventilation though.
2. Magnesium. Thermally – ok to good. Mechanically – passable. Weight – superb. Price – high but way lower than some exotics. Corrosion is a problem. Is it a blocker that can’t be resolved well enough for a reasonable price? I don’t know.

Right? It has been painful trying to keep up with this thread as of late.

Agreed. Adding zero value to the thread — the posts should be removed. It’s already long enough, lets get back to the product discussion at hand.

Hi, welcome to BLF where we try to maintain a fun, family atomsphere and actually enjoy ourselves. You must want that other place..

I’m absolutely positive, even with the higher number of fun, off topic posts as of late that it will be VERY CLEAR when the light gets released. Absolutely no doubt in my mind the “it’s ready to order” post will be buried by pages and pages of “ordered one” posts within literally minutes of it being released and no one will complain about those “posts of zero value”. I imagine TK / the fw3a team realize that and would update the OP/thread title or even make a new thread at that time to avoide their important announcements being burried by such “useless posts” too.

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RIP SPC Joey Riley, KIA 11/24/14. Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.

2. THE LISTwill be update until the FW3A is announced for sale. After that there will be no further updates. . It will be time at that point to get real serious about reading the “I ordered mine.” or “I ordered 3.” , etc., etc. posts.

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You never know how a horse will pull until you hook him up to a heavy load./"Bear" Bryant

Thanks everyone for listing all the materials in the world. That was very relevant to this thread and useful.

We missed one material though, and it’s actually relevant.

There is a compound called 1-diazidocarbamoyl-5-azidotetrazole or C2N14, also known colloquially as azidoazide azide… or just azidoazide for short. Its claim to fame is that it is extremely reactive, and extremely explosive.

If anyone has experience with chemistry, one might notice that azidoazide has 14 nitrogen atoms and none of them are in a triple bond. This is interesting because nitrogen really really likes to form triple bonds with itself. The common nitrogen gas molecule, N2, is one of the strongest known bonds in all of chemistry, requiring a great deal of energy to break it apart. Conversely, when two nitrogen atoms slam together to create that bond, it releases a lot of energy and is a very explosive reaction.

This is how dynamite works, a.k.a. TNT, which stands for TriNitroToluene. Tri… Nitro… Three nitrogen atoms held apart so that they can be explosively recombined on command… and ten other atoms to keep them apart until then. Meanwhile, azidoazide has 14 nitrogen atoms… and not much else. It makes TNT look pretty tame.

But exactly how reactive is it?

Well, a team of scientists tried to study it, and here was their conclusion: “The sensitivity of C2N14 is beyond our capabilities of measurement… even the smallest possible loadings in shock and friction tests led to explosive decomposition.”

It’s so reactive that no one has yet devised a way to measure it.

They tried a variety of things during their tests, and here is an incomplete list of stimuli which cause azidoazide to explode:

Exposing it to x-rays.

Touching it.

Moving it.

Dispersing it in solution.

Exposing it to bright light.

Putting it in a spectrometer.

Turning on the spectrometer.

Leaving it undisturbed on a glass plate.

And … absolutely nothing!

The reactiveness of this compound cannot be overstated. Simply existing seems to be irritating enough to set it off and make it explode. Azidoazide will literally explode at the drop of a hat, or for that matter, at anything else.

So why is this relevant?

Humans are a lot like azidoazide. Trying to get humans to not socialize is like trying to get azidoazide to not explode.

When humans are present, discussions will spring up at the slightest provocation, about virtually any topic, or can even be incited by nothing at all. Mere existence or passage of time is enough to set people off and make them talk about stuff. Expose a human to bright light, and they’ll generally say something. Put a human in a spectrometer, and they’ll make sure their opinion on the matter is expressed. Leave a human undisturbed on a glass plate, and it rarely takes long before words start coming out.

… and that’s nothing compared to what happens when you put multiple humans together in one place.

Wow… that stuff (C2N14), while very relevant I agree; is not gonna make The LIST.
To many people would get killed even trying to make the FW3AA (Azidoazide Azide), and still….. it would never get made. . .

Good post TK.
.
.
Edit: FW3AA was added to THE LIST afterall. With proper WARNING of course.

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You never know how a horse will pull until you hook him up to a heavy load./"Bear" Bryant

How about we do a special run in which one of the members does some electroplating with some silver nitrate?

Having a higher reduction potential than copper, which is why we can silver electroplate anything copper, it would mean we could have a silver plated on the outside, with some beautiful copper on the inside without the abhorrent cost of silver.

Or we could just try electroplating gold on it, which would be a bit more expensive and toxic with a cyanide solution.